With all the bad news about budgets and failures that the Newton County School System has had to endure over the last few years, it's encouraging and worth further mention when there is positive news to report.

That occurred earlier in the week when it was announced that Newton County fifth graders have improved writing test scores.

Hooray!

We hope this progress continues to shine forth.
Our school system didn't all of sudden wake up one day and find itself behind the eight ball: It happened piece by piece over the course of years.

So we don't expect this one piece of good news to mean that everything is better, but it is a step in the right direction. It's just one piece of the wheel of progress that will get our education system rolling again.

Congratulations to the fifth grade students and their teachers for their positive efforts.